To a Secular Friend: This is what I wanted to say

Disclaimer: This post is not aimed any one person, or group of people. I have written it first person to second person because it felt appropriate for what I wanted to say in the piece. The 'you' in this piece is a representative figure, and I understand these generalisations may not be representative of you and your beliefs.

It's been a good evening so far. We're at a house party, probably, or maybe just all out together for coffee or drinks or a film, and chances are we've probably had a drink or too (caffeine or booze). Conversation is flowing and everyone is getting on well, and somehow, we find we're talking about religion. It gets dropped in by accident, and you all say ordinary, acceptable kind of things about rationality and reason and tolerance, about it being very well in its proper place.

You almost certainly know that I'm a Christian. You probably know that I'm a Catholic because I like to joke about it, and you also know that on most things I think the same way as the rest of our set. We're casually left-wing art students with casually left-wing views. So you're not expecting it when I tell you that I'm pro-life (even though I give it heavy disclaimers, mostly so you don't associate me with extremists). You're not expecting it when I talk about living in a world with a real, tangible devil, or when I describe a book I'm reading for class as blasphemous. You can't believe that I'm saying these things because somehow these aren't the views of our set, our world, our friends. And yet I'm sitting in front of you. I'm drinking real ale, we've been talking about how to make the socialist utopia come about for the last half-hour, and I have just casually mentioned believing in the Immaculate Conception. Way to make things awkward, I can see you thinking.

There's a particular look in people's eyes when you mention these things. A kind of embarrassment, sometimes with a flash of anger, sometimes disbelief, but mostly just confusion. If you're clearly too embarrassed to talk about it, I make a joke about it and steer us back onto safe waters. But sometimes we do talk about it. And here things get interesting.

The first thing I want you to know, in this conversation, is that I am a rational, thinking person who has arrived at her faith logically and constantly evaluates her beliefs. This is probably the reason why I have started gabbling on about Canon Law or the schisms of the Early Church. You probably don't care, but please bear with me. I'm attempting to prove that I don't live on cloud cuckoo land, and that we can have a rational debate about this where I will understand your points and respect them. One thing I have found is that a lot of people assume that as a Christian talking to a non-believer, my initial response will be judgement, or attempted conversion. They assume that I cannot imagine a world beyond my brainwashed ideology and will not be able to talk about my faith on a theoretical level. I hope very much that they are wrong, because talking about my faith theoretically seems to be the only way to get people to respect it. The language of faith is increasingly alien, and the only way to make headway in conversations, like this one we're having now, is to translate it into academic concepts that we can detach from our instinctive emotional reactions. This also means that we're less likely to ruin our friendship arguing over determinism at 2.30am.

The problem is that I'm trying to prove myself by presenting faith in secular terms for a secular world, and increasingly, I feel that as a person of faith, I am living in a different world to people without. The mechanics of my world are different; yours runs on 'Science', whereas 'science', in mine, is just a part of the machinery, a descriptor of the divine whole. Last term I took a module on one of my favourite types of fiction, Gothic Literature, and in class we had some fantastic and broad-ranging debates about interpretations and world-views, of ideologies and sub-text, but somehow there was one ideology that only seemed to be visible to me: the idea that the monsters could be real. Even though you can discuss this as a theoretical concept, you can't really imagine it, because in your world God is dead. But not for me. For me, we are in the middle of a cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle declared won in the transformation of bread and wine where times touch and the victory is at hand. I live in a cyclic time marked by festivals moving us through the journey of our faith, through the agonies of sin and pain to redemption and glory. I believe in miracles and angels and visions, and even though I can discuss rationally the influence of medieval superstition or pre-Christian thought on the development of my faith I am still an alien to you when I talk about this world.

Alien. Aliens, especially religious ones, threaten you and the secular balanced world you believe in. The game at the moment seems to be divide and rule; turn us against each other, especially minorities or people whose lifestyles or beliefs go against the cultural norm, wait for retaliation, then play the blame game. So we're fighting on two fronts; we're fighting against the extremists who give faith a bad name at the same time as fighting for our faith to be taken seriously. And this is terrifying. If a commentator risks telling you that they cannot say #JeSuisCharlie because they find Charlie Hebdo's disrespect towards Islamic beliefs callous and offensive, then they risk being identified with the evil committed on that day. It's like this on a smaller scale when we talk. I want to prove that I am rational and intelligent, but I also want to stand up for my faith, which in your eyes, does not belong to the rational and intelligent world. How can I do both? In the end we drop the conversation and go home, wishing it had never been mentioned.

I want you to understand how much it hurts sometimes, trying to be a person of faith in your world. When you take the name of my Lord in vain, it's like you're using the name of my kid or one of my parents as a slur, except it's worse, because you are being offensive about someone I love more than I will ever love any person. I want to stand up for my faith and tell you to stop, but I also want to let you say what you will because I don't want to suppress your rights to free speech. When I was in my teens I thought that any conversation on faith could be 'won' by just providing better and better arguments, but these days, I'm more convinced that the only victory is that the conversation ends on a note of respect. I've acknowledged that your beliefs have a sound basis, and that I can respect your right to have them, and you have done the same for me. It's not exactly Preaching The Gospel, but I don't believe that anyone ever comes to faith through arguments. If we're arguing, I am not trying to convert you. I just want to talk.

Yes, I do want you to become a Christian. It would be strange if I didn't. But in this conversation I just want to talk honestly about faith. If we're in a seminar I want to show you an academic perspective that it has opened up for me. If we're talking teleology in the pub or 17th century politico-religious symbolism at 2am, then I want to talk about teleology or religio-politico-symbolio-ism. Just that. But more than that, I don't just want your tolerance of my faith, your awkward permission to believe it ('But...'). I want your respect.

Feminism: Did I Really Say That?

Trigger Warning: I do discuss my views on the pro-life/pro-choice debate later on as an example

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post trying to work out my feelings on feminism. I received quite a few responses - some agreeing, some disagreeing, and some offering me information and sources to look into feminism and expand my knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding it.

Since then, I have been trying to understand more about the feminist movement and gain a clearer picture of what is happening in it today, as opposed to the fuzzy picture of its past I'd been basing my opinions on. One year on from that conversation with my tutor where I refused to call myself a feminist, I would probably be happy enough to stick it in my Twitter bio. I follow most of the right feminist on the Twitter-sphere, I've engaged in the debates about sexual consent in the YouTube community, I've searched the right terms in Tumblr. There is a right (or should that be left?) way to to Feminism on the Internet, and I think I've got it sorted.

The first thing  I learnt about feminism is that sexism is still around. Following @EverydaySexism on Twitter has been an eye-opening experience; sexual assault is real, and sexist prejudice occurs frequently, in both minor and major ways. Often the perpetrators are unaware that they have done anything sexist, having been poorly educated about gender issues or raised with sexist opinions as part of their cultural norm. A year ago, I reckoned that women's lot was basically 'all-right'. As I sat in the back of a taxi stuck in a traffic queue and tried to ignore the man in the next car masturbating whilst staring at me, I realised that I might just be wrong.

Another thing I've learnt is that feminism isn't just about women's rights, a common misconception I held a year ago. Although women's rights are obviously the core of feminism, feminists recognise that you cannot support the rights of one oppressed group whilst ignoring another, or even allowing them to be oppressed to further your own ends. As a result, good feminist practice means supporting other movements for equality, acting against ableism, racism, and class prejudice. Ableism is a new word, and a new concept, to me, and possibly to itself. It replaces more negative words describing anyone with a disability, preferring to talk more positively in terms of ability, rather than lack of it - a term which removes the dividing wall between 'able' and 'disabled', classifying us instead on a spectrum of ability. Work against prejudice against disabled people has been around for a few decades, but the ableist movement is encouraging people to look beyond the obvious - e.g. allowing disabled students to go to university - and challenge assumptions and practices which disadvantage disabled people. The feminist movement seems to have stood staunchly behind this, especially where the two intersect. Indeed, intersect is the appropriate word here - the correct term for the union of these separate movements is Intersectionalism. I had to Google it the first time I saw it, and this awesome blog post came up - check it out if you'd like more information. It means that no-one acts alone; not only do we stick together, we watch out for ways in which our group maybe committing other types of prejudice, e.g. white woman taking precedence over coloured women at a feminist meeting.

Discovering Intersectionalism has given a name for something I've always felt, the sentiment of Martin Niemöller’s First They Came. But the application of Intersectionalism within feminism seems to be complicated. Phrases like 'check your privilege' and 'calling someone out' are the warning signs. 'Check your privilege' is basically the sentiment of the opening of The Great Gatsy ('just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had'), but reversed - remember that you are privileged, and that your background is the same as the oppressors. 'Calling someone out' means that if someone means publicly correcting someone because they have inadvertently said something ableist, or transphobic, or without awareness of their privilege in speaking, etc. I respect the good intentions of these actions, and agree with their basis, but in practice it seems to lead to a lot of feminist in fighting, squabbling, and divisions. People feel hurt as they fall out of the clique, having forgotten to use a neutral pronoun or dared to write an article from a man's perspective or disagreed with a statement about the glass ceiling in the workplace. Sometimes these issues are huge and should be noticed, and the feminist community should rightly feel proud that it is highly accountable and self-critical.

However, the result of this accountability and criticism seems to have been that a 'right' and a 'wrong' way of doing feminism has emerged, and some feminists will pounce on anyone doing the wrong type of feminism, and forbid them from calling themselves a feminist. This attitude rightly frustrates most other feminists, who are more interested in the practical application of feminism to the world. Laurie Penny, one of my favourite New Statesman writers, had a fantastic rant on her Twitter page this morning about 'Is it feminist to ...' articles. Although we're good at criticising victim-blaming and slut-shaming, we're even better at feminist-shaming.

Firstly, men. Male feminists can be 'Allies' but have to respect that there are certain arguments and places they must have no voice in, and no presence thereof, partially so that women can speak and not fear oppression, partially because they are descended from that great race of oppressors, the Male Species.

As a woman, I'm a bit better off, but a white, cisgender (the opposite of transgender), heterosexual woman I have to watch pretty carefully in case I throw my privilege around. I understand the importance of this; in so many places, the voices of the cultural norm overshadow and dominate the voices of the minority. I don't know what it is like to feel oppressed. However, at times the preoccupation with our differences, especially ones we have no control over, seem to hinder rather than help the feminist discourse. We're so obsessed with breaking down the rankings that we risk creating an alternative social hierarchy, where the right to speak and have a voice is negated by your lack of pre-determined privilege. I'm being careful making this comment because it is the exact same argument that Daily Mail (or Daily Male, right?) readers make when they claim that only asylum-seekers with twenty children get council houses, and that people ought to feel sorry for us poor 'indigenous' white Brits. That argument is clearly balls: my feeling here is that we haven't struck the right balance yet. In an ideal world, oppression would be historic, past disadvantages would be readdressed, and people of any sex, gender, race, ability etc would be able to discuss issues with equal voices. Until that happens, protecting the voice of minorities is important - I just feel that we haven't worked out a good way to do this without alienating anyone who happens to be in the majority, which is particularly galling if as part of the majority (white/cis/het) you're becoming feminist to stick up for the rights of someone in the minority. People get alienated for stupid reasons. I'm not personally offended, but it doesn't exactly make me want to get involved in feminist activities either.

The thing that really causes me problems within feminism, however, is how certain opinions - opinions I don't, and can't hold - have become set-in-stone feminist doctrines, and disagreeing with them seems to reduce the validity of your status as a Feminist. Although one of the principles in feminism is free debate, a little experience tells you instantly which argument will be taken up as the 'feminist' voice, and which the voice of the outsider and oppressor. For instance, I believe that women should have the right to wear the Hijab, so long as they do so because it is part of their personal belief system, and not being forced on them by men. Some feminists agree here, but those who disagree do so aggressively and angrily, labelling pro-hijab groups anti-feminist.

Let's take an even-worse example. I am pro-life. As a Christian (and a practising Catholic!) life is sacred to me from conception onwards. I think that pre-conception contraception is fine, but any form of abortion is unacceptable. This is my personal opinion, and I would not force it on anyone else, but in this case, my faith dictates that I have a moral duty to stick up for my belief, and for unborn children. I chose to do this by supporting better contraceptive advice for teenagers and more support for pregnant mothers etc rather than standing outside abortion clinics with placards, believing that it is better to treat the cause rather than the symptom, and that those kind of tactics are unpleasant and abusive. However, the loud voice of Mainstream Feminism seems to consider that to be pro-life is to be anti-woman, and a form of oppression over women's bodies. Men cannot have a say in what women do with their bodies; their foetus' do not count - in fact, only the woman in question does. It's a valid argument unless you believe in the sanctity of unborn life, which I do. Yet because I hold this opinion, I am seen to be siding with the Oppressor, the continuation of male and societal control over women's bodies. I'm not writing about this to start the pro-life/pro-choice argument, even though I know people will message me complaining about my views. The point is that feminism can be exclusive and restrictive, to its detriment.

Over the last year, my opinions and perspectives have been challenged in many ways, and I hope will continue to be challenged. I've found things I like and things I dislike about feminist, people I admire and people who frustrate me. I've also realised that I, and people like me, need to be active and aware of the complex social issues around us, fighting against prejudice in all its forms - whether that's black people sat at the back of the bus or the local radio playing Blurred Lines. Feminism is a shifting and dynamic movement, and yes, it's imperfect. But you know what? So were all the other movements that made a difference. We look back on the Civil Rights movement or the early gay-rights protesters or Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes as perfect examples because their cause was just and they succeeded, and we whitewash the flaws and the divisions in their campaigns - but that doesn't mean they weren't there. For all its stumbling blocks and cliques and in-fighting, today's feminist movement could be the successor to the glorious movements of the past, achieving monumental change not just for women but for society as a whole. It's worth baring the hitches and virtual-slapping and bitching to be part of that.

One year on from the pretentiously titled 'A Conversation With Feminism' blog post, I'm finally having that conversation - with myself. In my last post, I asked: 'Am I a feminist?' Today, I can finally answer: 'Yes.'

Joanna.

Fear and Hope

One of the greatest blessings in my life are my friends. I get to spend my life with the kind of people who make a room brighter just by being there. The kind of people whose first response is always kindness and tolerance, who dream about doing brilliant things, who listen to the world and want to explore it. And being around these kind of people makes me want to be a better person, to deserve the love I receive from them and be able to try and return it.

Then the news is full of anger and violence and pain. Distorted people, blurring away from the cameras, fists in the air. We stand for ourselves. Not them. Out. An eye for an eye. 

And they seem to think hate is good. One EDL member was asked on twitter what the difference between the neo-Nazi's, KKK and the EDL is (by and anti-EDL protester). His response: 

"easy to prove [that the EDL are different from the other groups] ..the Kkk hate black people nazis hated the jews and the edl hate muslims.....the only connection is hate ...so"

The only connection is hate, he said. And that's okay, of course, because it's not the Jews. Not black people. And not white people either.

But I'm lucky. I was always loved and taught to love. Trying to be loving is easy. So I try to understand. Hate begets hate; people who are hurt lash back. I don't like the EDL or the BNP or  UKIP. I hate what they stand for; everything about them repels me, and as a white British Christian I'd like to distance myself and everything I stand for from everything they claim to stand for, and the associations they make with white, British nationality, and even Christianity. 

But it is tempting to hate them sometimes. To sneer. To slap back, violent protest against violent protest, swearword for swearword. I'm a guardian reading leftie; of course I'd like to shout at Farage or Griffin. I'd love to tell Tommy Robinson where he can stuff his Britain. 

But we're trying to be better than that. And again I'm reminded how blessed I am. There's the Hope Not Hate movement, the mosque which opened its doors to the EDL, the good, sensible people who stand up to point out that extremists don't stand for the majority, who rebut mad nonsense with calmly-stated facts. A terrifying amount of people are trying to make hate the norm in this country - in this world - but more are responding with hope and peace. When the EDL protest, when the terrorists bomb towns or blow up cars, when rockets fly over walls instead of over our one planet, there are people who light candles, who pull children out of the wrecked buildings, who hold talks. John Green, in his video response to the Boston Bombings, called these people the helpers:

'If you look at those videos [the Boston bombing clips] you see two extraordinary things [...] all these flags lined up together, none higher than any other... those 96 flags of people running the Boston marathon are side by side because they stand for a larger us, an us sharing a human endeavour that doesn't require a 'them'. And the flags aren't blown over by the explosion, but within seconds some of those flags do come down. They come down when people, onlookers, first responders tear down the barricades to get to the injured. 'Look for the helpers', the great Mr Rogers said about tragedy, 'You will always find people who are helping.'  [...] Think I'm cool living in a world with flags, but I am most proud to live in a world where no flag flies above any other. There are people who don't want to live in that world [...]  but I know that we are not going to give it up. And I know that we can always look in hope to the helpers, and endeavour to be among them.'

John Green,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2X1gA5apcU, April 16th 2013

I don't think I can put it better than that. 

J.R.

A Politician Dies: Feeding Time for the Press

I found out that Margaret Thatcher, once Prime Minister of the UK, had died through Facebook.

Normally, I'm a bit of a news fanatic. I wake up to the sound of Radio 4 on my radio alarm clock. I read the Guardian and the BBC websites most days, buy the Guardian occasionally, and read Independent, Guardian and HuffPost articles through social media. (Although I have to admit to the odd glance at the Mail Online... c'mon, who doesn't?) Usually when something big happens, I see it trending on Twitter, and the first posts are usually links to breaking news articles, followed by the first few caustic comments, then the babble of opinions, jokes and arguments as the world wakes up to the news

Social media is a cruel world. On Facebook and Twitter, the words 'Margaret Thatcher has died...' are not followed by '...of a stroke at the age of 87' or '...in her bed at the Ritz, after a long struggle with dementia.' Aiming to impress our friends or followers, people rush to make idealogical statements. I think the first comment I saw on her passing was a Facebook status celebrating it, followed by one calling her a witch. News has never been just news, of course, and people have always and will always comment on it - as is only right - but this wasn't news. This was a death.

When a child is murdered, or a soldier dies in Afghanistan, the 'British public' falls silent. Twitter silences are grandiosely upheld, trolls spam the hundreds of 'RIP' pages, and the online community competes to offer its unwanted sympathy. Tributes to the innocent, respectable dead overflow into anger at their killers, grotesque expressions of violence and disgust, a pantomime of grief.

But when someone like Margaret Thatcher dies, the same people are celebrating. 'Ding dong, the witch is dead!' has been one particularly popular reference. 

If you've read anything on this blog before, it's a safe bet that you can guess I'm not a fan of conservative politics, Thatcher included. But as much as I disliked all she and her party stood for and did, I don't want to be one of those people gloating because, like all of us, Margaret Thatcher is mortal.

And fair enough, I'm not an expert on the eighties. I'm not old enough to remember her whilst she was still a powerful political figure in this country, and I don't have any personal or family grudges against her. To be honest, my political knowledge is self-taught, and although I'm not quite naive enough to think the 80's was all Billy Elliot, perhaps I would have stronger feelings if she'd been my prime minister. 

Yet even if she had been, or if it was someone like David Cameron - who I do know about and whose policies I dislike - who had died, I still wouldn't be celebrating. 

And it's not about the taboo of speaking ill of the dead which some journalists (especially on the left wing) seem to be using to justify their attacks on Margaret Thatcher. She has a family, who need time to grieve. No matter how much you dislike someone on a personal or political level, using their death for political leverage is, frankly, disgusting. If there's one reason for leaving well alone at this point, it should be consideration for her family and friends. But that's not something the British press are good at; they barge in on the families of murdered children, press their cameras and opinions into people's faces, invading privacy under the excuse of freedom of information. If the press was a person, they would be a hated social outsider, but there's nothing we, the public, seem to like better than our intrusive window into other people's lives, a window protected by Cameron's poor response to the results of the Leverson inquiry. 

And behind the hundreds of news articles, the press coverage, the disgust, outrage, genuine morning, ambitious political mourning, the recalling of parliament, the state funeral, is the ending of our human life. The loss of a mother, of a friend, of an ill, elderly woman. 

Forget the taboo of 'speaking ill of the dead'. What about speaking ill of the living? Broadchurch last week featured a storyline about a man hounded to his suicide by the press, but most importantly, the people around him. When difficult issues come up, responding is difficult, and so people throw insults. Of course we need to argue, to criticise, and to debate, but then it seems to slide downhill into personal insults and aggression.

I went to a left wing political rally at my university a few weeks ago. Owen Jones was the key speaker, as well as Natalie Bennet of the Green Party, and I'm afraid I went on the strength of their names and the slogan 'Against Austerity' rather than any really knowledge of what the rally was about. It was  interesting, and made me think. But one thing made me uncomfortable. Whilst making their points, speakers - both from the audience and the invited speakers - frequently made derogatory, even near-abusive remarks about their political opponents. Bennet slagged off the Labour party - prompting an angry response from a Labour party member present - the Socialist Workers were as aggressive as normal, and David Cameron was denounced with some pretty graphic language, to which the general response was 'Hear, hear' and banging on the lecture theatre desks. The only positive speaker of the night was Jones, who didn't descend to that level, and instead talked about hope for the future, and for that I respect him. 

I'm not writing this to criticise left wing politicians in particular - the right is just as bad. As it happens, I sympathised with most of the sentiments expressed that night, just not in the way they were expressed. Sometimes hard times call for hard words, but I refuse to accept abusive words, abusive actions. I think David Cameron's welfare plans are cruel, class-biased and uninformed, and I think my argument is stronger for saying that instead of just tweeting 'Cameron is a tosser'. He's not; he's a human, as fallible as the rest of us, with feelings, with a family. God cares about him, no matter what us left wing-loonies call him at rallies. 

How can we make the world better by celebrating someone's death? How can we possibly have an effective political system based on politicians belittling their opponents in the houses of Parliament, or a reliable press based on selling controversy? 

Writing this, I have the feeling that I'm not saying anything new. We've probably all had these kind of thoughts. But this kind of vile stuff is still out there. If I log onto Facebook now, I'll see pictures of shared images, telling me 'If U get offended by our flag, get the F*** out of our country!'. Or maybe this time it'll be a status telling me that the Pope is a homophobe who should be burnt alive. I've seen some stuff that is so vile, so logically inexplicable, so nasty, that it has made me laugh with shock. And this often comes from people I know, even people I consider to be friends. I won't like your status saying paedophiles should be tortured, that immigrants should be booted out, that somalians are ugly kmt, because you are better than that. Because I believe in more than just the fundamentality of human rights for everyone, deserving or not (although who are we to judge?) - I believe that every person is special, unique, wonderful, and yes, made by God. 

Perhaps sometimes we celebrate the death of someone we disliked because it feels like life has got its revenge on them, like we've won. In some cases, like when Osama bin Laden was killed, it is a genuine breath of relief for the world. But no matter how understandable dislike of a person is, no matter what political or social or other reasons make their death desirable, revelling in someone else's pain is inhuman. We have to be better then that. 

So on the day they bury Margaret Thatcher, no matter what my views on her as a person, or even on the public expense incurred by her burial, I, for one, will keep silent. 


J.R. 

Essay Block & Ash Wednesday

Warning: I basically wrote off the top of my head in this post. (Freewriting, I know these things!) and it contains teenage angst, even though I'm not really a teenager. If you are allergic to angst, the antihistamines are in the bathroom cabinet, and classic FM can be found online. Do not, under any circumstances, turn on Radio 4: our 'politicians' are still teething and having a bad week, bless... Anyway.

It's essay week, and the work is piling up. My deadline for the short essay I'm working on is Monday, and I have at least one other piece to write for Monday, as well as a novel to read for Monday afternoon, then another two essays to work on. I haven't got very far with any of this at all. 

So why am I writing this? I've been staring at my computer for a bout an hour, and frankly, I just need to write. Until you've started, you just can't continue. All of my essays have come back with comments to the effect that they improve near the end, as I realise what I'm doing and inspiration - as well as time pressure - spurs me on. Obviously this is something I need to work on, as I'd like all my essays to be this good, but to get to that point you have to write something in the first place. 

I've been working, slowly, on another post for this blog. I have bullet point notes and a full idea in my head. It's going to be a discussion of the deification of the mortal, and the human dependency on deity-figures (which sounds like an odd topic for a Christian, right?!) with a discussion on how I distinguish between my God (real - to me) and the varying false gods that capture my attention, like the Doctor, although I'm really not convinced by the plot arcs of the last series or so. 

But I've changed my mind about that post. I don't want this blog to turn into some kind of pretentious, moralising space where I post dull, self-righteous essays on my personal morality, and imply that you should follow it too. I'm thinking about where I should go with this blog, and like the essay on realism in relation to George Gissing and Matthew Beaumont that I should be working on, I'm having to re-think what I'm doing. 

I'll probably delete the draft versions of the last post, so you'll never get to see them. I'm not going to promise never to write another essay like the last post again, but I'll try not to. I'm afraid I don't always keep my resolutions; I have been kind of drunk once since my post on drinking, where I vowed never to be drunk ever again. Not dangerously drunk, not I-can't-stand-up drunk, but drunk. And I'm still not into drinking, and I have no intention of getting drunk ever again, but I still did it. I suppose what I mean is that I'm always trying to make things better, myself included, but writing self-righteous nonsense about my choices won't make me a humbler, or better person.

Wednesday this week is Ash Wednesday, and hopefully, I'll attend Mass in the Chaplaincy to be ashed, and make the repentance of sins which starts the annual journey towards Easter. I love Easter and everything about it; it takes me out of myself, briefly. On the Friday afternoon muffled bells ring, a solemnity only given for the death of a King (or Queen). Then there's the solemn wait, remembering, praying, and then at last, midnight on Saturday, and the end of the vigil. Easter, gaudy and bright, named after a pagan festival, commercialised, the day we remember Jesus rising for the dead. 

I'm not very good at Lent, so I still haven't decided how to prepare this year. I know already that if I try to give anything up, I will fail. This sounds a little negative, but will-power is not my strongest personality trait. Maybe I'll take something up, instead. Even if I accidentally miss Lent (like last year. Oops.) I like to do something for Holy Week, trying to pray more, or actually read the Bible, which I neglect too often.

Perhaps this year my resolution will be to listen more. It's to easy to get stuck in your own head, obsessed with your own voice and opinions, and forget to be there for others when they need you, and I think that maybe I've been caught in this trap recently. I know that I'm not humble, and I mean that, even though I'm confessing it here (!) and I'm conscious that in this blog I've been caught up in my own preconceptions and beliefs. I haven't helped anyone else by lecturing them on morality. From now on, I'm going to try to share more and lecture less, and be significantly less prosaic. Also, I'm going to make my posts shorter, if I can bear it...

I'm not sure how to sign this blog post off. I've been saying 'God Bless' but I'm not keen on those words - it sounds like I'm commanding God to bless you, which isn't very theologically correct! And I know that for many people reading this, those words won't mean anything, even if they comfort me. 
So perhaps this: In whatever faith you have, in your faith in your God or Gods, in humanity, in whatever keeps you strong, be confirmed this week. 

Back, for now, to the essays.

J.R. 

And so, to Mass

If you'd rather not read all this, but are interested in praying/being prayed for, please skip to the bottom! 

If you'd told me, a month ago, that I would become a part of the Catholic community at university, I would have laughed at you. Maybe, I would have said, but that's not my thing. I mean, it's nice to go once a year, for old times sake, but I'm a Protestant. A member of the URC church. I'm going to find a URC church somewhere in Norwich, first Sunday, and I'm going to enjoy being a dissenter for a bit. Also, I'm going to join the Socialists. (Yeah...that didn't happen. I've never met people who so strongly resembled zombies before...)

The problem with that plan was that it seems God has his own plan for my life. Sometimes I doubt that God is doing things in my life, because it's easy to doubt when you think you have everything sorted, and you're in control. Yet this week has shown me, more than ever, that God is helping me out and guiding me. If this new path hadn't been so surprising, I might not have noticed it. How many times has God done this for me, I wonder? Corny as it might be, I've spent the last few days thinking back to that 'Footsteps in the Sand' poem, and wondering if right now, God is carrying me. I'm trying to manage so many different things, learning to run my own life for the first time, and I have a thousand things to organise and worry about, yet I feel strangely content, even peaceful.It's illogical; I am always worried and stressed. It only makes sense in the knowledge that God is helping me out massively at the moment, carrying me and all the baggage that comes with being a new university student so that I can cope. Tonight's homily (sermon/talk) in Mass was on thankfulness, and tonight, I feel like I understand how much I have to be thankful for. I'm just not sure I have the words to express it.

But I've kept you waiting to hear about this surprise, the sudden new direction God seems to be sending you on. 

I may be going back to Catholicism. 

I say may because, as I'm finding is usual for plans the Big Man's had a hand in, it is almost impossible to predict what is going to happen next. This might just be a temporary thing to help me get through the first few weeks of university. It might be forever. All I can do is trust and hope.

But why should this be so surprising? I've already told you that I'm a member or the URC - the United Reformed Church - but my relationship with denominations has been a complicated one. As an adult Christian, I've found my place in liberal, free church Protestantism, but when I was brought up ecumenically. I was baptised jointly in the Catholic Church, and the Church of England, in a shared service, and brought up as an equal member of both churches. Incidentally, I understand mine was the first baptism of this kind, ever. They're not common; my parents and the Association of Interchurch Families (AIF) worked really hard to bring it about and make it feasible. People still disbelieve me when I explain it, but it's true. To add to the complication, when I was fourteen I was confirmed through our Local Ecumenical Partnership, becoming a full member of the Church of England (or, the Anglian communion), the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, and the United Reformed Church, a move which effectively annulled my baptismal membership of the Catholic Church. Then a year ago, I moved to my local United Reformed Church and became a local member there, and in that Church community I believe I have found where I belong. When I moved there I was spiritually tired. I needed to receive rather than give for a while, and I know God guided me there for a reason. They've encouraged me and supported me in my faith and my personal life, and helped me slowly become an active part of the church again, helping out with an early morning toddler service. 

To cut through the religious jargon: Some churches get on and some don't. They believe in most of the same things, but belonging to more than one is often considered paradoxical, because of their minute differences. Some of us ignore these differences and do it anyway. One of my friends called me 'a mongrel of religion'...I think that sums it up accurately.

So why, after effectively removing myself from the Catholic Church years ago in my early teens am I once again wrestling with it? My relationship with the Catholic church has not been easy. As a child, I thought that Mass was boring, because it had no Sunday school, and this led to my desire to quit Mass as soon as I could, only attending when I was forced to go. I was still a regular church goer, attending protestant services on Sunday morning, so until now I never thought of it as 'leaving church'. I never understood why young people drop out of church till now, thinking retrospectively. I don't blame myself; Mass is not designed for children! 

As a young teenager, I became conscious of the divisions between the Catholic church and the protestant churches. Issues like the ordination of women became important to me, and I realised that the little theology I'd worked out for myself fitted on the Protestant side of things. Within a year or two, I became and angry teenage ex-Catholic. I was angry. How could they be so stupid, and so obviously wrong? I wanted to correct everyone who had made the mistake of being Catholic. I was rude, and it stills hurts me to think of the nasty things I said to good Catholics at the time, at school and in my family. The teenage brain is not programmed for empathy, according to the BBC news, and I was in that respect typical.

But alongside all this burgeoning teenage angst, I was trying to find an adult faith of my own, working things out. A few months after my confirmation, at 14 years old, I had an experience that changed how I think and understand God forever.

I won't go into details here. Let's simply say that I had a private experience of the numinous. I told people at the time and I was ridiculed, which I perfectly understand, so I'm saving that event for my own prayers, and encouragement when I'm struggling. Strangely enough, it happened in a little URC chapel, downstairs from the conference house I'd been staying in (On a Methodist course...). I think this is important. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm wondering now if God is saying to me, you can find me in the United Reformed Church. By which I don't mean that the URC has a monopoly on God, but that I specifically am meant to be a URC member. 

At the same time, I was at a Catholic school, and enjoying being the one person who refuses to say the Hail Mary in class. Small rebellions are the source of endless pleasure as a teenager! 

Yet the last few years, things have begun to change. Having identified everything I dislike about the Catholic Church, and more importantly, found a place where I can be comfortable and develop on my own faith, I've begun to find my attitude to the Catholic Church changing. It started with a supportive priest, the realisation that going to Mass with my school and taking communion with them was important to me, and a grudging respect for Catholic moral authority. I'm not sure I agree with everything the Vatican says, or the contents of the Catholic Church Catechism, but more and more I find myself respecting the moral teachings of the church, with its sound, loving ground, and turning to it for guidance. After all, it is the bedrock of a third of the world's population, and the morality of the western legal system. You have to respect something that has commanded that degree of authority. 

But it's more than respect, more than acceptance of our differences. At Mass, I find a reverence for God, a sheer state of adoration, that is rare in any other denomination. (Although I think my home church do it pretty well!). There are times when I want to be quiet, to reach out to God in my heart, and to think on how wonderful and awesome he is, and this is so apparent in the majesty of the Mass service. Catholicism, at heart, is simply beautiful. You can criticise it's teachings or policies however much you like, but the beauty is always there, shining through. 

And Mass on campus is something special. For the first time, I'm going to Mass with a group of energised young Catholics who care about their faith, and we have an excellent priest who preaches the most brilliant sermons. I've been twice and loved it, coming back feeling more in touch with God from each one. I've also made it to an ecumenical church once, and tried but failed to make it to a URC church this morning, so it's not just laziness that draws me back to the on campus service. Even when I find a protestant church of my own, I'm going to stay a Mass goer, which I suppose will make me a two-service a day girl... Don't bash me with your bibles or anything, right? 

From one angle, it sounds like the Prodigal Son story, but the truth is that whilst I am returning to the security of my childhood church, the church which has come to mean safety and reassurance to me, I'm not renouncing anything I've done since, or going backwards. On the contrary, to grow in my adult faith I need to belong to a church which is nearer to my particular beliefs, and in which I can participate fully - hopefully a United Reformed Church, although I'm open to any of the denominations I belong to! But I'm glad to have made my peace with the Catholic Church, and I think there's more to come from our brief encounter. God is doing something, sending me to Mass at the very time when I'm attempting to make a new start in my life. I look forward to finding out what it is, and trust that God knows, as always, what he's doing.

Your prayers for me at this time would be greatly appreciated, and I'd love to respond in kind. I remember to pray far less often that I should, so having names would be a wonderful thing. If you'd like me to pray for you/exchange prayers, leave your name as a comment, or tweet/DM me @corybantically, or if you have me on facebook, private message me!

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings about the interior working about the Christian church. Leave any questions in the comments and I'll try and explain more clearly :) 

God bless!

J.R. x 

A Simple Faith

My shower is evidently a very inspiring place to be. I seem to think up most of my blog posts in it.

(Yes, you needed that contextual information.)

As usual, this morning, I was thinking about my frustration at A-Level R.E. It's a great subject, but it doesn't relate to my faith at all, and so I struggle with the dull critical essays which bandy around words like 'soteriology' 'replacement theology' 'eschatology' e.t.c. without ever getting to the heart of the matter. I sincerely doubt that heaven will only be open to those who can describe using key words and quotations the development of the covenant relationship between God and Man. I don't mean that we should be ignorant and never question faith, not at all; I just doubt that many people will discover their faith on page 235587395158a of Religion for Dummies. 

So I've decided to tell the story of faith in my own words here, as I'd tell it to a child or a bible scholar. I can't guarantee its theological accuracy or even state that it fits in with any particular denomination. Since I took my faith on for myself around thirteen, I've been working on this, asking God questions and trying to make sense of it all, something I'm going to be doing all my life. So this story isn't perfect, isn't complete. Please be patient. 

(When I write 'God thought' e.t.c. this is artistic liberty. I'm not trying to put words into God's mouth.)

This story has no beginning. Recently, I heard a quote from a famous writer on short stories, suggesting that when the story is finished, the start and end should be cut off. I, however, do not know how this story starts or finishes. I am not the author. I am a minor character on page 98, but I'm quite content with my little part. 

For all intents in purposes, it starts with God. No-one except God knows how he got there, or why. Some people argue that this is an unsatisfactory start and that God ought to justify being there if we're meant to believe in him, but as yet God has not answered this question. As I said, the story is far from finished. 

After demanding angrily from God what business he has in existing in the first place, and making things so awfully complicated by doing so, the next question is 'What is God anyway?' Generally, humans like to greet each other by demanding 'Who are you?' but no-one seems to have thought of asking God this yet. They've been trying tests and writing papers on the question for years, but just asking the question never satisfies human curiosity. Humans like to poke and prod and ask questions. Again, this is not a bad thing. 

The one thing that one particular group of people have become certain of about God is that he is Love. Love, like God, is notoriously difficult to define and at some point in their lives every human attempts to do so. My own favourite definition was for some years 'God's favourite drug', a sentence that I felt embodied a suitable amount of sarcasm, naivety and fashionable faith lingo. For now, I've given up pretending to know anything about love. We all know enough, anyhow. You don't need me to tell you about it. 

The scene is thus set for the opening of the story. God is love, or at least he is very good at loving, or something like that, is existing. Nothing else does. There is silence. Peace. 

But all creatures who love need others to love them back. Contrary to human preoccupation, this whole faith-thing didn't start because we needed God. It started because God needed us. 

So God made all of Creation, and it was beautiful. Everything was good, and everything that was good came from God, and was of God. The animals loved him blindly and were part of him in their love. 

The problem was that love does not come from obedient, unswerving devotion. Real love is a choice, and God knew this, as he chose to love his creation, but they did not choose to love him. It was the love of master and servant. It was beautiful, but it was not enough. 

So God started again. He had a brilliant, radical idea. He would make people, built on his own image, with the same capacity to choose to love. He knew, with a heavy heart, that they might reject him and do terrible things to each other in their capacity for hatred, but he did it anyway. Love was worth paying the price for. 

So humanity came about, and they were beautiful. God loved them immensely, and was desperate for them to love him back. Yet as he had feared, they began to turn against him. Temptation lead them into ignorance, and even evil. Some did love him, but a good many simply forgot about him in their rush to discover the new world, and so the relationship with God was lost to humans. 

God stayed with them. He watched them develop and evolve, guiding them, walking amongst them unseen. Some glimpsed him and as the people split over continents and seas, different understandings of God appeared. Some saw his left side, some saw his right, but no-one ever saw him in his fullness. God hid himself in the good things of the world to shield their eyes, and hoped that one day, they would find him.

Time passed.

Then God has an idea. He would tell someone about him and they and their descendants would be his helpers. They would tell others about him, be teachers of the human race. Eventually, he settled for a man named Abram and his wife Sarai. At this point, God could have appeared in glory, surrounded by angels and trumpets and loudly demonstrating his power, although the poor elderly couple probably would have had heart attacks. Instead, he decided to do the most marvellous thing for them, the thing they had been longing for all their lives. Sarai had never been able to have children, and she was too old. But nothing is impossible for God, and he gave her and Abram a son, Isaac. He also chose to rename them Abraham and Sarah. If I was writing an essay I'd call this a 'symbol of their new life', but I'm not, and I'd rather just call it one of the unfathomable quirks of God. 

Abraham and Sarah became the ancestors of the Israelites, God's chosen people - chosen to tell everyone about him and his tremendous love. But not even the Israelites could believe. So God sent them prophet after prophet. He rescued them from slavery, sent them brave leaders to keep them safe, and guided them to a place where they could live in peace. However, the Israelites were just humans like us, so they disobeyed God, and frequently failed to understand him. They fought with their neighbours and kept the truth about God to themselves, so no-one else really came to faith. Who can blame them? The Christian Church has often done the same thing. It's a very human crime. 

God watched all of this and he was sad. He saw them go further away from him and make each other suffer, and it hurt him. He'd tried everything. 


Then, God had a brilliant idea. 


This is the complicated part, because now we get to the idea of 'Trinity', or, three in one. Frankly, no-one, not St Thomas Aquinas or Simon Peter or the Archbishop of Canterbury really understands how this works. God is just too big for human minds. To be limited is to be free to make mistakes, to be ourselves, to make choices and be amazed by the wonders of creation, but it does make God hard to understand. So God needed to meet humanity in a way we would understand, and to do this, he sent part of himself to earth. To demonstrate his love, he set this up as a Father/Son relationship, but in reality they're the same, two different ways of seeing God. To cap it all, God then threw in the Holy Spirit, because he knew we'd find it tough, believing in him, and he wanted to show us a way to reach him, without expecting celestial telephones to drop down whenever we want a chat. The best way I can describe it is like an iceberg. They say that only 20% of an iceberg is visible above the surface - that's the 'Son' part - and 80% is underneath, and that's the 'Father' part. Then I guess all the frozen water nearby is the Holy Spirit... perhaps I'll let that analogy drop. 


Anyway, God sends his son to earth. As humans have proved we're not very good at recognising God, God made his son a human, born in a provincial backwater of the Roman Empire amongst the Israelites and named a rather common Hebrew name, Jesus. 


Here I could write books and books. (Although I don't need to: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have done it for me). Telling this story 2000 years later, about a man I never met in the flesh, I am almost overwhelmed by my feelings for him. Creation was brilliant, but Jesus was a master-stroke. Many humans came to respect him, even those who disbelieved his teaching, for his morality, his kindness, his love. In the three years he spent teaching, he gathered around him a small group of followers who would go on to spread his message throughout the world. But Jesus wasn't just around to spread the word. He had something else in mind, harder and more complicated to explain than anything God had ever done before. 


When asked why Jesus had to die, many Christians have come up against a massive wall. 
"We're sinners," They reply, "We have to be saved." 
"Are we sinners?" responds the atheist. "Why? And why do I owe this God anything? Personally, I think I'm quite a good person. This Jesus didn't have to die for me." 


I cannot even pretend to have a decent or full answer to this. Like I said, I'm writing a unfinished story. 


I suppose the nearest thing I have to an answer to this is that choosing God, choosing to love him means giving up everything that is not of God, all the evil thoughts, temptations, un-Godly ways of living. Humans never manages this. Through the grace of God, some of us can get pretty near - think Mother Teresa - but in the end we just can't give up our evil enough to get close to God. Life comes from God and is of God; without God, we die, far apart from him. It's the worst punishment ever. Humans have tried to imagine Hell as a representation of our worst fears, all flames and whips and chains, but the truth is Hell is worse than this. If all that is good is of God, than to reject God, or turn away from him because of our dependence on sin, means that in the next life when we should be with him and all that is good we must go where God is not, and all that is of God is absent. This is an evil of our own making, and it makes God so very, very sad. 


So God decided to break the rules.


Okay, he thought, they can't break away from sin and all that, so they're stuck with the consequences. But what if I took the consequences away? Jesus could do that. 


Although, they won't be grateful .


But I love them. I'll do it anyway. I miss them so much, and I want them home. 


So God gave Jesus a task. He, God himself, had to die, and descend into the place of unbelief, breaking its power. Then all the people would have to do is follow him out, and forget all the consequences. Jesus was a man and he was scared, but he was also a God who loved humanity, so he obeyed. And God the Father did give him the choice. Jesus chose to love, and chose to die one of the most terrible deaths ever invented. Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful, drawn-out, public way to die, offensive to the religious beliefs of the Israelites and designed to humiliate the victim. Uncomplaining, he went to his death.


But God wasn't finished yet. 


On the third day, something happened. In the tomb where Jesus' body lay, God stirred. The son came back to life. Time was ripped open; those who had died, those who were dying, those who hadn't even gotten around to being born yet - everyone was saved, and could choose to live again with God, should they accept it. All they had to do was trust God and accept his love, and they could be forgiven anything, could escape the consequences of their prior actions, could be renewed. It was brilliant. 


Of course, nothing is so simple as just accepting love. 


"Why did you make us suffer? Was it you? You weren't there. What about the cancer? The floods? The wars? Did you do that? Why didn't you help us?"


So the questions started, and the people began to vivisect God. It got complicated, very quickly, and even the best storytellers had no proper answers.


Yet God was always there, in the confusion. He walked through hospitals, holding hands, guiding the surgeons, opening the eyes of the children, weeping with the bereaved. He sat with the soldiers, in the pubs, in the back-rows of the lecture theatres, crying for our losses and celebrating our joys. Some people said that it was a test, others that the only way to see God is also to see evil. Some spoke of a devil, the embodiment of evil, or a battle between good and evil in the world. Evil existed, they were sure, but often they forgot about all the good that existed too.


God did not give his reasons. He was proved and did-proved, loved and hated, lost and found. He waited. All the time, he still loved. 






Writing this I'm so conscious of how much I owe God, more than I could ever repay. The beauty is, I don't need to repay him. Just accept his love. My love for him is imperfect, small, flawed, but I know I am loved and one day I hope that I will be able to love him perfectly back.


God Bless & peace out x 
J x 

Goodbye Rowan

Warning: Post with lots of Church-y jargon! Please feel free to ask if you don't understand anything and I'll amend the article.

Today, the Archbishop of Canterbury has announced his decision to resign as Archbishop and take up a position as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

( The full article can be found here)

My immediate reaction was shock, then sadness. I know that these days most senior religious leaders - except the Pope - do not die in office, but move on or retire, but to me, Archbishop Rowan Williams feels like a moral pillar in religious and secular society, someone a great many people have depended on, loved and respected. It is with great sadness the Church must wish him well with his journey and his new position. Besides, it's far better to congratulate the Most Reverend Dr Williams whilst he's still alive!

I recently had the privilege of hearing Dr Williams speak at a service for the reconciliation of the United Reformed Church and the Church of England (it was the 350th anniversary of the split, when the dissenters left/were thrown out of the established church). His sermon was engaging, theologically relevant, beautifully crafted, poignant and powerful. The service had a special meaning for me; I was brought up in an interchurch family, Catholic and Anglican, confirmed ecumenically, and these days my 'spiritual home' is URC, so to be there at the healing of these two churches (and we had VERY good seats! :D) was incredibly special. As a representative of the established church, Rowan Williams is conscientious, brave, and intelligent, and unlike so many politicians never abuses others in giving his opinions of judgements. He has worked tirelessly for peace and justice and to resolve both internal conflicts in the Anglican Communion, to mediate between faiths, and to speak on behalf of the oppressed and suffering. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he has earned the respect of sceptics of the faith and world-leaders, without ever abusing his power or discriminating against non-Christians. His wisdom and kindness - who can forget the response to 6 year old Lulu Renton's Letter to God?) are inspirational.

I also have a special respect for Rowan Williams as a poet. I've been frantically searching the internet for his poetry this last half-hour and it is truly beautiful. Some people can do everything! The independant's comment here seems to be typical of the praise for his writing. I recommend, if you're into poetry at all, to search out his poetry. As a poetry geek, I'm thrilled to discover a different writer, especially one that the other poeple on my course may not have heard about and so I can show off about... ;)

If you're reading this, Dr. Williams (if only!), I'd like to wish you the best in your new post, which will suit you down to the ground! The students of Magdalene College are very lucky! I hope you continue standing up for the faith and those who need a champion, and I'd like to thank you for ten years of strong guidance of the Anglican Communion through some trying times. God Bless.

J x